Kern County Derails Refinery Expansion Plan

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (CN) – The Kern County, California, Board
of Supervisors voted Tuesday to rescind approval for a project that would have
allowed a Bakersfield refinery to process up to 63 million barrels of volatile
Bakken crude oil a year.

The vote reflects a settlement reached with Alon Energy USA,
local residents, and environmental groups.

“By stopping this project we have avoided significant
increases in particulate and NOx (nitrous oxide) emissions from the numerous
diesel locomotives pulling these oil trains in and out of town every day,” Tom
Frantz, president of the Association of Irritated Residents, said in a
statement. “That is a real health win for the residents of Kern County.”

In October 2014, the Association of Irritated Residents,
Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity sued
the county for approving the massive refinery and rail expansion project
without properly analyzing the health and environmental risks involved with
shipping and processing Bakken crude oils.

Bakken crude comes from northern Montana and North Dakota, and
Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada. Much of it is extracted by hydraulic
fracturing, commonly called “fracking.”

The stuff is highly explosive. In July 2013, a train
carrying Bakken crudes derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people and
destroying much of the downtown area.

If the expansion plan in Kern County had gone through, two
mile-long trains a day would have traveled through downtown Bakersfield and
right by a local high school, according to a statement from Center for
Biological Diversity.

Bakersfield, population 380,000, is the ninth-largest city
in California. Located at the halfway point between Fresno and Los Angeles, the
region produces more oil than any county in the state and boasts the
fourth-largest agricultural output.

It also has some of the worst air in the nation, ranking second
for ozone pollution.

This image of smog blanketing Bakersfield appeared in a 2015 article about new research from the University of California, Davis.

Approximately 1,500 Kern County residents die prematurely
each year from exposure to toxic air pollution, which also accounts for “$3
billion to $6 billion in health costs and lost productivity annually,”
according to the groups’ complaint.

Refining Bakken crude, which emits levels of the toxic
compounds responsible for creating ozone pollution, would only exacerbate the
problem, the plaintiffs claimed.

In November 2017, California’s Fifth Appellate District
ruled the environmental impact report for the project did not adequately assess
air pollution concerns and underestimated the likelihood of a train derailment.
The court remanded the case to the county with orders to draft a new impact
report that complies with the California Environmental Quality Act.

With Tuesday’s rejection of the project, the plaintiffs
agreed to dismiss their suit against the county.

“Families throughout Kern County can breathe easier knowing
that this ill-conceived, extremely dangerous project has been stopped,” Earthjustice
attorney Angela Johnson Meszaros said in a statement.